The brand new Netflix reality series Hitmakers takes viewers inside songwriters’ camps, the place top songwriters get collectively to collaborate and write songs they hope will develop into pop hits. They’re beneath time constraints, and are sometimes requested to work with individuals they’ve by no means labored with earlier than. And whereas the interpersonal strife appears to be what the principle thrust of this series is, we’re right here for the music that comes out of those pressure-filled classes.
HITMAKERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “Behind each hit track is the one that wrote it,” says among the members in Hitmakers as we see scenes from hit music movies from Dua Lipa, Sabrina Carpenter, Miley Cyrus and others.
The Gist: In Hitmakers, twelve top songwriters in each the pop and nation genres attend three totally different writers’ camps — the Bahamas, Nashville and Cabo San Lucas — the place they may collaborate in smaller teams and check out to provide you with songs that may promote to top recording artists. On this case, the artists they may writing for are John Legend, Shaboozey, Lisa and Usher.
Within the first episode, the preliminary group of songwriters land within the Bahamas, with the aim of promoting a track to Legend. The preliminary group consists of Harv, Ben Johnson (the one nation author within the group), songwriting couple Stephen Kirk and Jenna Andrews, Whitney Phillips, Sevyn Streeter, Nova Wav (the workforce of Brittany “Chi” Coney and Denisia “Blu June” Andrews), Tommy Brown and Trey Campbell.
All of them keep collectively in a luxurious home, to foster camaraderie, however it’s undoubtedly a aggressive ambiance, and the strain is on to write a hit in the course of the subsequent day’s songwriting session. After they get to the large studio house close by the following day, they break up into three totally different groups, and have six hours to write a track and file a demo to be heard at the listening get together that night. Ultimately, they may pitch the most effective track they wrote to Legend, and he’ll decide which one he desires to file.
What Reveals Will It Remind You Of? Hitmakers seems like The Actual World, solely with songwriters.
Our Take: We couldn’t put our fingers on precisely why Hitmakers felt so contrived to us, but it surely did. It’s not like songwriters’ camps don’t exist, and it’s not like the concept the writers who attend them are tasked with developing with songs in a restricted time period. However one thing about how this explicit series of camps are structured make us surprise if issues occur this fashion when there aren’t cameras round.
Sure, we get the sense of camaraderie and collaboration — and the concept restraints and deadlines foster creativity — that these camps are attempting to develop. Nevertheless it felt like many of the members have been spewing “I’m not right here to make buddies” sort of discuss, mentioning how cutthroat issues are and the way aggressive the ambiance at the camp goes to be. Multiple songwriter talks about popping out on top by promoting a track, as if there are “winners” and “losers” in a reality competitors.
However right here’s the factor: These are all proficient songwriters and producers, all of whom who’ve written songs for A-list recording artists. All of them besides Campbell (as he factors out repeatedly) have penned a chart-topping track. Is there actually a want to be aggressive with one another? Do these writers want to really feel that competitiveness to do their finest work? It belies how we all the time imagined songwriting was completed, with somebody noodling on a guitar or piano, jotting down lyrics, and generally waking up with total songs of their heads.
However what received to us extra is that we’re undecided if Hitmakers is a music series or a reality cleaning soap. Is it about writing hit songs or is it about the clashing personalities as they undergo the three camps? Regardless that there doesn’t appear to be any eliminations, new individuals be part of the group as they transfer from camp to camp, ostensibly to throw off the established group dynamic. The scenes from the upcoming season point out that it’ll be extra about character conflicts than about songwriting.
Then once more, watching these teams strive to provide you with one thing within the recording studio isn’t precisely scintillating tv, except, like we noticed with the temper-challenged Stephen Kirk, one thing goes incorrect. Maybe the producers sensed this and determined to focus on the personalities within the ultimate edit. We’re undecided.
What we do know is that the songs that come out of those classes are fairly good, particularly given the time constraints. It exhibits simply how proficient these persons are, and that they’ll carry out when beneath a fast deadline. If we are able to see extra of this because the series goes ahead, the present will probably be enjoyable to watch.
Intercourse and Pores and skin: None.
Parting Shot: Everybody celebrates the success of the primary full day after listening to the songs that got here out of the day’s classes.
Sleeper Star: Ben Johnson is the one author for nation artists on this group, and he managed to convey some melody and chuch-choir vibes to the track he collaborated on within the first session.
Most Pilot-y Line: Tommy jokes round at dinner and says, “I’m not courting till I get married.” He thinks he ought to have an organized marriage.
Our Name: STREAM IT. We’re on board with Hitmakers due to the music that’s being produced in these camps. The interpersonal stuff could drive the drama, but it surely’s a lot much less attention-grabbing to us on this context.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about meals, leisure, parenting and tech, however he doesn’t child himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared within the New York Occasions, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Quick Firm and elsewhere.
